The reshaping of literary publishing field and the emergence of literary translation market between 1850 and 1900

In this study, I aim at re-reading the modernization of Ottoman literature dated back to second half of nineteenth century through the history of literary translations. At first, it may sound odd to think translated works as a part of national literature, but it seems to be necessary to re-asses the initiatory role of translation for the Ottoman literature from a new perspective. The discourse of literary history where translation is pointed at as both the indispensable and obligatory result of modernization process and a means for "proper" modernization has still been used without any criticism since 1900s. In addition, despite their contributions, the recent researches in the field of translation studies highly affected by cultural studies methodologies keep reproducing the same old discourse about the preliminary conditions of literary translations as they mainly based on these literary histories. However, recently the Ottoman modernization have been scrutinized and re-formulated in the fields of history and cultural studies. Within the light of these studies and guidance of Pierre Bourdieu's research methodology on the field of cultural production, I deal with literary translations with in the cultural, social and economic context of the era and basically in relation with reshaped literary publishing market. The study displays that due to the effect of centralization movement on education text books gained importance and became a crucial means of profit and prestige, thus financially supported the bloom of private printing houses. Besides, the spread and modernization of public education not only caused an increase in the number of readers but also provided a surplus of qualified manpower, in other words a new type of translator ready to sell his/her labor for the publishing market. As is known, censorship on political activities and publications indirectly paved the way for literary and scientific translation and publishing activities, but it also drastically limited the list of pieces to be translated. It seems that censorship together with the tough economic conditions left publisher/printers no choice but to be on good terms with the Ottoman palace so as to survive financially. Moreover it appears that the palace supported and led the publishing activities more efficiently than what we have believed up to now. In short, the study claims that the literary translations of the last quarter of the nineteenth century were a natural outcome of a modernized printing market and power relation networks, rather than a not so much adopted, obligatory phase of modernity.